No photoes actually taken during the Great Depression though which was over by 1939.

In a way, this makes my grandparent's verbal memories of that time come to life in color. My favorite picture is of the two boys fishing on the bayou in Louisiana. It reminds me of Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn" with the two boys wearing straw hats, overalls, and barefoot on a hot southern day. Thanks for the pictures!

Evening folks,

I had the moderators change the title of the thread to Rare Color Photographs from the Early 40s in order to correspond more closely with the dates of the photographs.

They're very "Norman Rockwell" in some of the pictures. I would love to see if any of these children are still living and find out more about their experiences. Could be an interesting research project, especially since of the pictures are from the Tennessee area, which are my old stomping grounds.

Once again, I appreciate the thanks. Just thought this would be a fun one to share.

Awesome pictures!

The last picture is captioned as being from "Pie Town".....I like it.

Amazing pictures. Makes me wish I was alive to experience simpler times.

Thanks so much for the awesome photos! I love looking at pictures from days of past and those we astonishing being in color .. Ive never seen these before..

I absolutely looooove things like this.
Thanks for posting.

Originally posted by Jinglelord
Gorgeous photographs!

For those commenting on how clear these pictures are it shouldn't be that surprising. My biggest surprise was the color depth and richness that was preserved.

Remember the first color photograph was somewhere aroung the 1860s / 1870s timeframe (not exactly sure right now) by the late 30s Kodak and Agfa were both offering commercially available color films which had gotten pretty good building off of over 60 years of experimentation and refinement.

I think the reason these are special is that they were stored properly. Color and black and white films degrade over time and it is even worse if not stored in a climate controlled dry place. The negatives or slides for these probably sat in a government storage archive for 60 or 70 years which are controlled to stop damage to documents, books microfiche etc and would have preserved the film well.

Many well preserved b&W from the era look even clearer.

Anyway these are amazing and I wish people would get to digitizing all their old photographs to share with the world!

This explained so much for me! I was shocked by how clear these were. It never occurred to me that my grandmother's photos were once clear, and faded with age.

My grandmother was 12 years old in 1940, when most of these were taken - and she is still living. So yes, some of the people in these photos may very well be alive still (to answer another poster's question).

Originally posted by Caji316
Great post.....That may look like hard times but those people are a lot happier than us right now....That's a Sunday picnic to what is coming to America...

You have absolutely no idea what the depression was really like and how is people watching their families starve a real picnic? Go to the library or Google the subject.